The name of the game is BALANCE

When it comes to evaluating network marketing opportunities, it's not which company, which compensation plan, which products, which support systems or which upline team is the best that really matters. If there's not a workable balance between all five criteria, real leverage will be almost impossible to achieve.

The five critical criteria you need to consider when analysing and evaluating network marketing opportunities are:

1. The company — always the Number One risk factor for network marketers.

2. The compensation plan — can you make money, especially as a part-timer? Is the company siphoning off windfall profits through high breakage? This is the bottom line of any compensation plan.

3. The products — are they MONTHLY-consumable, in-demand, safe, effective and outstanding value for money? (Value… not cheap!)

4. Support systems — from the company and the upline team to make the opportunity 100% duplicable and to save time and effort.

5. The upline team — do they value people and use money, or is it the other way around? Will they actively support, train and encourage you? When YOU need it?

Most opportunities excel in one or two criteria, but fall down badly in others. Typically, they have excellent products, but the reward plans are geared against the part-timer. Or they have excessive breakage to the company because of high group volume requirements.

After almost three decades in network marketing, more than 25 of those years spent as a management consultant to MLM and party-plan companies, I've learned some valuable lessons. Of all those lessons, one is more valuable than any of the others. That lesson is that careful, intelligent BALANCE is the name of the game.

What about leverage? Isn't leverage vital?

Yes, leverage is critically important. But leverage is really all about balance, if you think about it. No balance, no leverage.

So tearing off in any one or two directions, while leaving others weak or vulnerable, can lead to serious risk. Just because a business opportunity has the best products, or the best compensation plan, or the best support systems, is NOT reason enough to choose it over another if there are serious deficiencies in other aspects of the business, such as company management, management priorities, or an upline team that isn't serious about supporting its downline people, or chooses to exploit them.

You need to look for a well-balanced mix, so that the end result is a business opportunity that can actually be made to work, and to make you money in the process.

Sometimes the lack of balance applies only to the local scene. A company may be a solid success on its home turf, but face serious problems in other local markets, due to any number of causes, including those not of its own making, such as over-regulation, atrocious exchange rates (if the reward plan is seamless globally) or logistical problems with things like deliveries, collateral materials, etc.

How do you know if the right balance exists?

The simplest way is to rate the opportunity you're analysing in each of the five critical criteria for assessment. Draw up a simple grid, analyse each of the five criteria in turn, and rate them on a scale of, say, 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.

This gives you a basis for comparison with other opportunities.

I realise that this isn't a totally objective method. I'm not convinced that there is such a thing. All personal decisions will have some degree of subjectivity. It's when subjective, emotional decisions outweigh the objective, rational decisions that imbalance occurs. As long as the balance is reasonable, you should be able to come to a realistic choice.

Prepare a small chart like this for each opportunity you wish to compare (perhaps on Post-It® notes), circle the rating you assign to each criterion, then see where the strengths and weaknesses lie.

Which opportunity offers the best overall balance?

Remember… this is just a basis for comparison. The ratings will only have real relevance in comparing two or more business opportunities. But you'll find, as you compare and make adjustments and revisions to your initial ratings, that you'll gain a progressively better overall view.


©1997 John Counsel. All rights reserved. No reproduction by any means permitted without prior written consent of the copyright owner. Reproduced here with permission. This article appeared in Australian Business & Money-Making Opportunities magazine, November 1997 issue.

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